Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

nintendosmash.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 378 posts

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#11

Post by harimau777 »

superhuzza wrote: post #4
jpxw wrote: post #2

If you count Candy Crush then sure

Why wouldn't you count Candy Crush? It seems like it would fall under any reasonable definition of video game.

I'd argue that ultra-casual games like Candy Crush have so little in common with "core games" that it's not particularly useful to consider them the same thing.

A similar situation:

If I was discussing "board game culture" I think that most people would recognize that I'm referring the culture associated with games like Catan or Pandemic as opposed to people casually playing Tic Tac Toe.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#12

Post by bjo590 »

op03 wrote: post #8

Anything good on Linux these days?

https://store.steampowered.com/linux

If a game is going to support Windows + macOS than it isn't much more work to also support Linux these days. There are many games released on Linux every year.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#13

Post by jpxw »

happytoexplain wrote: post #7
jpxw wrote: post #2

If you count Candy Crush then sure

I know the comment I'm about to make isn't very substantive, but oh man is "gamer" gatekeeping prevalent.

I’m not a gamer, so it doesn’t make sense for me to be gatekeeping.

Edit; although this study would probably call me one, because I picked up an Xbox controller one time.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#14

Post by jpxw »

rsynnott wrote: post #6
jpxw wrote: post #2

If you count Candy Crush then sure

This is such a weird attitude. If someone was to say (figures made up) "over two billion people worldwide now drink beer" then "if you count Budweiser then sure", would be a bizarre response. Candy Crush is clearly a game; this isn't really ambiguous. It's a mass market game that game connoisseurs sneer at, sure, but it's a game.

I’m just saying that if you count anyone who has ever played Candy Crush, your stats aren’t going to be particularly meaningful, and you’ll end up with a number like “three billion”.

If the same number was cited for beer drinking, I’d be saying “sure, if you count anyone who’s ever had a Budweiser”, and it would be a valid criticism.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#15

Post by rsynnott »

harimau777 wrote: post #11
superhuzza wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you count Candy Crush? It seems like it would fall under any reasonable definition of video game.

I'd argue that ultra-casual games like Candy Crush have so little in common with "core games" that it's not particularly useful to consider them the same thing. A similar situation: If I was discussing "board game culture" I think that most people would recognize that I'm referring the culture associated with games like Catan or Pandemic as opposed to people casually playing Tic Tac Toe.

> If I was discussing "board game culture"

No-one's talking about 'board game culture', though. This is about whether people play video games. If you were talking about the board games people play, Catan would be a barely visible blip; it'd be all about things like Monopoly. Now if you were talking about people who consider playing games part of their identity, I'd be inclined to agree (though there are edge cases; Pokemon Go falls into both 'casual game' and 'game that people get a bit weird about', for instance), but that's not at all what this survey is about.

EDIT: Also, well, media evolves. If you look at the sort of TV that's popular now, a lot of it is dramatically different to how it was in, say, the 80s and 90s. Someone who'd been in a coma since before Seinfeld came out would find modern sitcoms (with their lack of laugh tracks), and high production value dramas with multi-season story arcs (barely existed until this century), and reality shows, extremely weird. But they'd recognise that it was TV. And some 80s-style content still exists; it's just largely not what is popular right now.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#16

Post by rsynnott »

jpxw wrote: post #14
rsynnott wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a weird attitude. If someone was to say (figures made up) "over two billion people worldwide now drink beer" then "if you count Budweiser then sure", would be a bizarre response. Candy Crush is clearly a game; this isn't really ambiguous. It's a mass market game that game connoisseurs sneer at, sure, but it's a game.

I’m just saying that if you count anyone who has ever played Candy Crush, your stats aren’t going to be particularly meaningful, and you’ll end up with a number like “three billion”. If the same number was cited for beer drinking, I’d be saying “sure, if you count anyone who’s ever had a Budweiser”, and it would be a valid criticism.

This would appear to be people who currently play games.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#17

Post by hindsightbias »

ashtonkem wrote: post #3
jpxw wrote: post #2

If you count Candy Crush then sure

And you should. “Casual” video gaming, a term that carries unfortunate dismissive undertones, represents the most common form of video games played. The proliferation of the smart phone has undoubtedly helped here. Probably more so pre-pandemic. My observation when I lived in Chicago is that many people played these games while commuting via mass transit, I’m sure fewer are doing that now.

Decades ago, people did crosswords or read the paper/books while commuting.

Do see a bit of sudoku. It would be interesting if there are music vs audiobooks metrics on today’s commuters. I get the commute escapism of candy crush but I’ve seen enough of that in homes/work to wonder.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#18

Post by rsynnott »

hindsightbias wrote: post #17
ashtonkem wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you should. “Casual” video gaming, a term that carries unfortunate dismissive undertones, represents the most common form of video games played. The proliferation of the smart phone has undoubtedly helped here. Probably more so pre-pandemic. My observation when I lived in Chicago is that many people played these games while commuting via mass transit, I’m sure fewer are doing that now.

Decades ago, people did crosswords or read the paper/books while commuting. Do see a bit of sudoku. It would be interesting if there are music vs audiobooks metrics on today’s commuters. I get the commute escapism of candy crush but I’ve seen enough of that in homes/work to wonder.

Podcasts would also be quite big, I'd expect.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#19

Post by prophesi »

jpxw wrote: post #14
rsynnott wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a weird attitude. If someone was to say (figures made up) "over two billion people worldwide now drink beer" then "if you count Budweiser then sure", would be a bizarre response. Candy Crush is clearly a game; this isn't really ambiguous. It's a mass market game that game connoisseurs sneer at, sure, but it's a game.

I’m just saying that if you count anyone who has ever played Candy Crush, your stats aren’t going to be particularly meaningful, and you’ll end up with a number like “three billion”. If the same number was cited for beer drinking, I’d be saying “sure, if you count anyone who’s ever had a Budweiser”, and it would be a valid criticism.

I get what you're saying. It would be interesting to see the statistics on how many people play non-casual videogames. And how many people drink craft beer.

Though with videogames, it's still a meaningful statistic to include "casuals" considering it used to be taboo to play videogames at all as an adult.

Post reply on HN